Joe Biden is gearing up for a court fight over tapes that could reheat questions about his handling of classified material. Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge on Friday they expect the former president to move by Tuesday to stop the release of roughly 70 hours of partially redacted audio from 2017 conversations with his memoir ghostwriter—recordings now sought by House Republicans and the conservative Heritage Foundation, per Politico. DOJ has agreed to hold off until at least June 15 if Biden takes legal action.
Biden spokesperson TJ Ducklo said Biden only turned over the tapes to special counsel Robert Hur on the understanding they would remain private and argued that the push to release them is "about politics," noting the DOJ has said they serve no public interest. Heritage's Oversight Project calls the recordings evidence of a "massive lie" about Biden's past fitness to serve and alleged disclosure of secrets.
The audio, recovered after the ghostwriter tried to delete it, includes Biden reading from notebooks later deemed to contain classified information and saying, "I just found all the classified stuff downstairs," according to Hur's report. Hur declined to charge Biden, describing him as a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," per Axios. How Biden's legal team will try to block release remains unclear. The AP has more on how the ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, became embroiled in the case.
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